LA Times Stinks Up The Joint. Again.

Via Will's post on LA Metblogs, this is the most asinine thing yet for the LA Times: They've decided to eliminate their local coverage section and fold it into the front page. Kevin Roderick has more at LA Observed:

Publisher Eddy Hartenstein has ordered the California section killed, leaving the L.A. Times without a separate local news front for the first time since the paper's early decades. The publisher decided to fold local news inside the front section — which will be reconfigured to downplay national and foreign news — despite what an official of the paper confirmed for me was the unanimous and vocal objections of senior editors. Advertisers were informed on Wednesday, and word began to leak on Thursday. Hartenstein reportedly planned to delay an announcement until the close of business on Friday, fearing it will play as another black eye for the Times. He's right about that. I'm told that in contentious discussions in recent weeks, the editors failed to persuade Hartenstein that if a section had to go, the more palatable cut would be to move the less-read Business pages.

The whole story is just depressing. Honestly, it's been years since I read the LA Times consistently, but I still have fond memories of flipping through the California section at the breakfast table before school while my dad read the Sports. Really ridiculous.